‘Twas the week before Christmas. My least favorite time of year. On top of the usual watching others enjoying themselves while I moped, my English teacher expected me to star in some dumb end-of-year Christmas show. Hell could freeze over or the ice cap could melt before I’d ever degrade myself with participating in that play. It was for that reason that I decided to humor the individual who came out of some weird portal offering to take me to Phantasia – the mystical realm from my favorite series of novels.
It was my mother who first introduced me to M.S. Webber. On those rare occasions where she came back home from America, we’d always spend our days together reading through the Chronicles of Phantasia series, cosplaying its characters and even creating our own concepts for fan-demons! I didn’t get to see Ma often, since she moved to the States. She told me that we could afford all the books and cosplays we wanted with the money her new job over there was earning our family. Whenever she visited, it always felt like a special event or a holiday just for her, myself and Dad. So it only made sense that she’d come home for Christmas last year, her favorite holiday of all! It was going to be the greatest Christmas ever! …But things don’t always turn out like they do in one of M.S. Webber’s fairy tales, do they?

“Hark, Erin,” Kuro said, interrupting my train of thought, “Phantasia we hath arrive’d!”
The black void of Kuro’s portal that was surrounding us broke away to reveal an interior of stone resembling a medieval castle dungeon you’d find in a popular RPG. In the center of the room, a large, out-of-place stage like you’d find in a theater. I gritted my off-white teeth as the glorified wooden windowsill and drapes reminded me of the reason I had abandoned Dublin to follow Kuro in the first place.
“You don’t expect me to act in some holiday play up there, do you?” I asked the witch as she walked towards the stage.
“Nonsense! We doth not even celebrate Christmas hither in Phantasia!” Kuro paused. “Although I would liketh if thee wast to playeth a part in a festival of sorts…”
“As long as it’s not Christmas, I’m game,” I shrugged, curious as to why Kuro had brought me here.
Kuro cleared her throat. “’Tis mine understanding that thy love for mine sister's novels hath inspir’d thee to maketh thy own demonic actors?”
Was this grown woman seriously asking me if I made M.S. Webber OCs? Or did she somehow already know that I had? I blushed and gulped, nervous to embarrass myself with my answer. But I also didn’t want to risk lying to Kuro in case she did in-fact already know about my original characters. In spite of her taking me to Phantasia for free and getting me away from my schoolwork, I was still wary of her. After-all, she was still some freaky interdimensional witch!
“’Tis nothing to be asham’d of, Erin,” Kuro reassured me. “I too us’d to maketh mine own actors and writeth mine own scripts.”
“Well, yes,” I mumbled, “I have created a few fan-demons.”
“Excellent! Thy imagination wilt be most useful to me!” Kuro smiled, taking my hand and walking me onto the stage.
“My imagination?” I asked. “What do you need that for? Actually, why did you bring me here in the first place?”
“In this world, people from the human realm art bestow’d with the power to turn into demons born of their imaginations,” Kuro explained. “In thy case, that demon wouldst beeth Vera Dickens, I believeth.”
I stared at Kuro with an utterly gobsmacked expression. Vera Dickens – my fanmade demon character – I was going to turn into her. I looked down at my skirt. My nylon-clad legs were still coming out from underneath rather than Vera’s ghostly tail, so I realized the transformation wasn’t automatic. Although Kuro seemed to be able to transform willingly between her normal-looking black-haired form and her Halloween-looking blonde form. I asked her if her transformation was related to whatever it was she was talking about, to which she confirmed it was. She too was a human from Earth nearly forty years ago, or so she claimed.
“I be Chloe Webber's summon’d demon – or ‘kinkind’ – a succubus with the power to maketh black holes,” she said, “but no two unrelat’d demons has't the same abilities. Thy kinkind doth be Vera Dickens, a ghost with the ability to traveleth backwards or forwards in time twice within twenty-four hours.”
If M.S. Webber’s sister could turn into a demon, could M.S. Webber too possess some sort of supernatural ability? I asked Kuro that very same question, prompting her to let out a deep, long sigh.
“When a kinkind becometh too powerful for its summon’r, ‘tis known as a ‘mary sue’. Normally, a train’d kinkind warrior can keepeth their kinkind at bay and transform freely between human and demon form… such be the case of mine self,” as she said that last part, Kuro briefly shifted back to her more conventional appearance, “but a mary sue wilt completely taketh ov'r its host, nev'r letting those folk turn back to normal for the rest of their lives.”
I knew where Kuro was going with this. I already knew what she was going to say. But I didn’t want to interrupt her. I could tell she just really needed to vent to someone. I’d been there before. Hell, when Erin Wilde goes on a tangent, there’s no force on Earth that can get her to stop talking until she says what she has to say! Once Kuro finished her rambling and confirmed my suspicions, I knew what I had to ask her next.
“You want me to become a kinkind warrior, or whatever, I take it?”
Kuro nodded, “So thou art faze’d not by mine tale?” she asked me.
“I mean… I’m really sorry about Mary…” I said, trying to voice my concerns in a way that didn’t sound like I only cared about myself.
“There art no need to be apologetic,” Kuro frowned, “I didst not liketh that lady anyway.”
I paused, unsure of what to make of that remark. Regardless, I asked Kuro whether or not I would be at risk of losing myself if I summoned Vera and she became a “mary sue”.
“I doth not bethink there be a significant chance that Vera would becometh a mary sue. That lady’s ability is much too situational to becometh overpower’d,” Kuro explained, putting my fears to rest.
I was still unsure of why exactly the witch wanted me to become a kinkind warrior, but I figured I could at-least give it a go, it could be good craic. And, after-all, it felt like the least I could do to repay Kuro for taking me away from the holiday season back on Earth.